midnight
by sierrafoxtrot
Summary: Written for the "Girls of Harry Potter" challenge on HPFC. I love this one... R&R Rated for violence... :O


**Written for the Girls of Hogwarts competition. I actually really like this :) Zach and Justin = love**

* * *

The younger students queue at the door. Zacharias Smith (tall, blond, afraid) runs towards them, fights through them without pause for their feelings. His eyes are wild and he is driven by some force of desperation. A hand shoots out and catches his arm, pulls him to a halt. It is Colin Creevey (just as blond, just as afraid).

"Zach?"

"I'm not going," he responds quietly, head bent to the younger boy's level. "I'll be back. You get out safely." It is an order- the Gryffindor snaps to attention, his eyes only slightly mocking.

"Of course."

"Seriously, Colin," Zach calls as he leaves, "get out now."

He wonders, later, if he knew at the time that that would never happen.

Zach hits the stairs and sprints up them, turns along twisting corridors and bangs through shortcuts. He encounters Peeves, but the poltergeist takes one look at the frantic expression on the Hufflepuff's face and leaves him alone.

The room of requirement materialises almost immediately and he bursts in. there is nobody there (everyone is in the Great Hall). He hurries to the portrait of the girl and she beckons him forward. He runs down the tunnel, appears in the Hogs Head, and trips spectacularly over the step at the entrance. Aberforth, who is lazily looking out of the window, smirks.

Zach disappears with a crack of displaced air.

* * *

Justin strolls leisurely across one of the many squares inside Eton College. He is in rather more casual clothes than normal (which is a blessing) - a short blazer with the school crest on the pocket, black trousers, smartly shined shoes. His friend Nicolas runs one hand through his hair and says something about the pretty new maid.

There is a crack of displaced air; a figure arrives, silhouetted by the lamp post.

Justin has his wand out within seconds and, ignoring his muggle friend's shout of alarm, he pushes the wizard against the lamp post. The light falls onto the man's (boy?) face and Justin falters for a second, then his wand digs into the man's (boy?) neck more securely.

He laughs weakly. "Justin, hey."

Justin manages to hide a smile. "Not much of a welcome, I'm afraid, old chap, but you can't be too careful these days."

Nicolas, who seems to have been forgotten by the other two, coughs uncomfortably.

"My name is Zacharias Smith, everyone calls me Zach," Zach is saying, "I have been going out with Lisa Turpin since I asked her to the Yule Ball in fourth year and she hexed me. I told you I loved her under the influence of some serious alcohol in fifth year, and you promptly told Ernie, who pestered me for months to tell her." He takes a breath, "You are madly in love with Susan Bones and you finally managed to sleep with her in sixth year after Dumbledore died, and our best friend is called Ernie Macmillan." A pause. "Oh! I once called Michael Corner a bastard in the library and he and Terry Boot cursed me with something that nobody could find out how to undo, and they wouldn't tell me until I apologised."

Justin laughs and relaxes moving away. He nearly puts away his wand in his blazer, but Zach's hand shoots out and grabs his arm. "Don't put away your wand, Jus'. I'm not here for a social visit."

For the first time, Justin notices the heavy bags under his friend's blue eyes, the scars that slide across his face like lace, the bruises, the new lines.

His face shuts down, his eyes shutter slightly. "Susan?"

"No," replies Zach. "We're fighting. Potter's turned up, they're barricading the school. Proper fighting, Jus'."

Justin whirls, turns to Nicolas, who is looking almost afraid. He snaps; "Nick, listen to me very carefully. Get to Henry Black-Chatswire. Tell him that Justin Finch-Fletchley needs him to get the Princes out. He's two years below us, you know, tall, dark haired. It's really important."

"Why? What-" the poor boy says, but Justin looks serious. "Now, Nick! Tell him that they're fighting. Harry and William need to get out as soon as possible if it all goes to shit."

Zach looks at him in something approaching awe as Nicolas sprints to the door at the other end of the courtyard. "Christ, Justin. You don't mean-"

"Of course I do. If the Death Eaters win, which is very possible, they're going to go after the Muggles, aren't they. In which case, the Royal family need out."

They Disapparate. Nicolas Bosworth runs through the corridors of the esteemed college at 10 o clock at the weekend, searching desperately for some guy called Henry Black-Chatswire, and he has honestly no idea why.

* * *

They arrive in the small dingy pub, and Zach immediately takes over, leading Justin through the secret passage into the room, and from there to the Great Hall. People are running everywhere as they prepare; they bump into Michael, Terry and Anthony, who are leaning outside the library, intensely discussing something in a language neither of the Hufflepuffs understood. They see Neville shouting orders, and Lavender Brown shepherding younger students out of the castle. Justin sees the differences in people's faces; the way that everyone obeys the seventh years without question, the cuts, the scar lancing across Anthony's face, the bruises that render Seamus almost unrecognisable, Michael's arm around Padma's slim waist and the way that Hannah can't move her arm above her shoulder.

"What happened?" he whispers as he enters the Great Hall.

"Snape happened. The Carrows happened." Zach looks at him with something that is almost sympathy. "We aren't the same people that you saw in September, Jus', we just aren't."

Justin opens his mouth to answer, but before he can he is almost knocked over by someone flying into him at top speed. He gasps as he recognises Susan, her arms wrapped tightly around his midriff and her face buried in his neck; shoulders shaking with tearless sobs. She whispers his name over and over as he pushes his face into her thick black hair, and she lifts her head and pulls him into a deep kiss. It is one that, when reluctantly broken, leaves them both breathlessly. He smiles at her.

"I missed you."

It is so simple and she kisses him again; he can feel her smiling. Finally Justin pulls away, holds her at arm's length and looks her up and down. His eyes alight on a deep cut, which stretches in an almost artistic curl from just below her ear, and disappears into her shirt. He runs one thumb along it contemplatively and she shivers, whether from residue pain or pleasure he can't tell.

"Who did this to you?" he asks flatly. "I'll kill them."

Susan sighs and tugs the surprised Justin out of the hall. They plunge into the swarm of the activity in the Entrance hall and she drags him into a nearby alcove. Susan unbuttons her crisp white shirt with shaking fingers (there is a sharp intake of breath from Justin); the cut extends between her breasts and across her stomach, curving almost gracefully around her slim waist to her back. He winces, bending his dark curly head to kiss along it gently to her collarbone and then he sighs, resting his forehead on the pale stretch of skin there.

"The Carrows," she said grimly, "were talented with their curses." She laughs bitterly; he hates the noise coming out of her mouth. It seems almost (although not really) appropriate coming from Zach, but not from the delicate, pretty, feminine Susan. "They saved the best for the pretty ones."

He does up her shirt silently and kisses her, his hands trapped between them. He clasps her hands for a second, tightly, and then forces a smile.

"Let's see how many of these bastards we can kill," he says, and she smiles, the happiness breaking through the mist of bitterness. He feels triumphant that he has coaxed such a reaction from her.

* * *

Neville walks towards them swiftly, looking harried. "Justin," he greets, shaking hands distractedly. He turns to Zach and Wayne Hopkins, who are standing with them. "Zach, Wayne, we need you in the grounds. Justin," he nods, "doors? Ernie's there already." he doesn't pause for an answer. "Lisa, we need you at the top of Ravenclaw tower, go see Terry, and Susan, doors as well. Ok, good."

He leaves. Justin gapes. "Was that _Longbottom_?"

Zach laughs. "Yep." He brushes a gentle kiss across Lisa's lips, looking into her eyes for a brief second before pulling himself away with a simple "keep yourself safe." He smiles tightly for a second and, with a lurch, Justin realises that he doesn't expect to see her again, and how serious this is. Zach puts a hand on Justin's shoulder for a second, touches Susan's hand, and Wayne smiles at them all and then they are gone.

Susan turns to Lisa, who says, "I'd better go see Terry. He'll know what to do." The two girls laugh, as if at a private joke that only they understand, and they hug, tightly.

* * *

Susan stands with all her weight placed on her right leg. It is a habit that all the DA have picked up from someone (she is not quite sure who, although something tells her that it's one of the Ravenclaws) and it makes a fast push off point if you have to run.

They are standing in a group by the doors and her internal clock ticks quietly along with everyone else's, counting down the seconds and-

It's midnight. The sky outside is a dark blue, although she can't see it and at the moment that Hogwarts explodes, Susan Bones meets Justin Finch-Fletchley's eyes. They are brown and intense and for a brief millisecond he winks at her, just a flicker, and she feels a smile growing on her face-

The sir is rent apart. The ceiling almost seems to disappear and there are bodies flying everywhere; she is tossed backwards as easily as a rag doll, smacking into one of the stone walls with a crack as her head hits its unforgiving surface. She feels abruptly sick as she struggles to her feet and the world spins. Her wand is nevertheless in her hand within seconds; a small trickle of blood dribbles down her cheek. Over the noise she hears a high insane cackle.

Bellatrix Lestrange enters the fray. Her black curls are wild and fly across her face as quickly as her wand slashes through the air. She cackles again and Susan feels a chin run down her spin as she sees, with a jolt of horror, Ernie Macmillan disappear under a swarm of hexes. Terry Boot is cut down with an unthinking swish and flick; he drops like a marionette that has had its strings cut. Susan ducks a jet of green light and rolls, sending her own shooting into the back of a black robed Death Eater as Mike Corner falls, hands clutched to a face that is covered in bright red blood.

Bellatrix carves a path of destruction through the chaos and she enjoys it; the cruellest killer that had ever existed, the Hufflepuff thinks.

It happens in slow motion. Susan sees him run at her, the first one to take her on in front. Her wand comes up, she smiles, the watchers cry a warning. She curses him; the Latin resonates for a second in Susan's mind before she begins to run. He falls.

((_evanscor_))

They were never taught it in the DA. Neville asked Tony and Terry (oh_god_terry) whether they would teach them it; they replied that it was so old, so arcane, that even they didn't know it and even if they did, they wouldn't.

It was terrifying in its simplicity. It did something so straightforward that nobody had thought of it until the middle ages, and then it was banned, ostracised.

It vanishes the heart.

She fights her way to him; Bellatrix moves on, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake. The other Death Eaters bob in the slipstream, picking off the survivors who are injured. They don't see Susan, she darts behind anything that it still, trying not to looks at the faces of bodies littered across the cracked paving stones. She shoots a curse and drops to her knees. They smart but she doesn't care; she pulls him onto her lap. A droplet of blood is sitting at the corner of his mouth and she wipes it away, tears falling onto his face like raindrops. Real raindrops fall from the sky above them and he smiles shakily as he heaves one last breath, eyes staring at the midnight stars.

* * *

The ceasefire is called, and they count the deaths.

Justin. Jack Sloper. Terry Boot. Anthony Goldstein. Dean Thomas. Wayne. Ernie. LisaPadmaParvati. Blaise. Theo. Justin. JustinJustinJustin…

His name echoes as she tries to keep herself busy, but it resonates within her mind, reverberates so that everywhere she looks it is etched on the walls.

Neville saves them all, Harry finishes it.

It is over, in so many ways.

The midnight hour is finished, but it lingers in the scar that pulls Mike's handsome face out of shape and the pain in his eyes, in the gashes across Lavender's body as she is rushed to St Mungos, and the way that there are two empty spots by Justin's body where Ernie and Wayne should be.

Nicolas Bosworth never quite understood why he ran for the Princes that night, but on the 5th of May 1998 he receives a letter, written in a pretty feminine hand that nonetheless scrawls across the page messily, as though the hands were shaking to badly to hold the pen.

_Dear Nicolas, _it reads, and his eyebrows rise to his hairline.

_I was in love with your friend, and you did him a great service the other night. He will not be returning to Eton next term, but I would like you to know that he really did like you, Zach said. I would like to thank you for looking after him when we could not, and I would like to invite you to the memorial on the 4__th__ of August this year. I think he would have liked you to be there._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Susan Bones_

Nick goes. It makes little sense to him. It also makes him cry and, although he never mentioned it again, the woman with the midnight blue dress and sad eyes struck a chord with him as he mourned his lost friend, killed in a way that was never quite explained.

* * *

**Reviews are Zach and Terry being mentioned by JK Rowling :)**


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